A day after the
PadFone 2 images were leaked via Twitter, Asus today officially unveiled the PadFone 2 at an event in Taiwan. Users can opt to buy the PadFone 2 either as a standalone or together with the PadFone Station. The price ranges between $620 (Rs. 32,739) and $750 (Rs. 39,607) for the smartphone alone and the entire combo costs an additional $210 (Rs. 11,089).
The unique smartphone-tablet hybrid consists of improved specifications especially in terms of design and hardware in comparison to the original PadFone.
As expected, the smartphone sports a 4.7-inch screen with a 720p Super IPS+ panel coated with Corning Fit Glass. This is an upgrade from the previous generation PadFone that came with a 4.3-inch screen. You can further increase the screen size by using it with the Padfone docking station, that gives you a 10.1-inch 1,280 x 800 IPS display.
The PadFone 2 will ship with Android 4.0, which is a bit disappointing but the company has promised a Jelly Bean upgrade in the future. The device features a 13MP rear camera with an f/2.4 BSI sensor from Sony, which supports 1080p at 30fps and there's a front-facing 1.2MP camera too.
Under the hood, the PadFone 2 packs in quite a punch featuring a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor 2GB RAM. Once again, that's an upgrade from the dual-core chipset seen on the earlier PadFone. The hybrid also flaunts NFC capabilities, comes with a 2,140mAh fixed battery and offers 50GB of Asus WebStorage for two years.
The PadFone 2 weighs a total of 649g which makes it lighter than theprevious hybrid which weighed 854g. The device's 6,600mAh battery has been compromised and slimmed down to 5,000mAh. It will be using micro-SIMs and a new 13-pin connector compatible with Micro-USB and MHL, replacing the earlier 40-pin one.
As far as pricing and availability for India is concerned, there is no official word yet. But what is certain is that the PadFone 2 will be sold in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models and come in black and white flavours. More details are likely to surface at the Milan event, so watch this space as we continue to update.
Asus recently launched the
PadFone in India priced at Rs. 64,999. It is powered by dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor and comes with 1GB RAM, 32GB of internal storage and a 8-megapixel digital camera with Fuji image processor, F2.2 aperture and 5-element lens.